Midnight Society responds as fans accuse dev of stealing images from Cyberpunk 2077

Dr Disrespect’s game studio, Midnight Society, shut down claims they stole images from CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 teaser trailer, telling Dexerto it was a placeholder from early web design.

Dr Disrespect made waves after announcing the launch of his game studio, Midnight Society. However, the internet was torn over his decision to give 10,000 players early access to his first game in the form of Founders Pass NFTs.

The two-time assured fans NFTs weren’t required to play the game, wouldn’t change the experience of the game, and was intended to be a way for Champions Club members to own a piece of the studio’s history.

However, more backlash piled on the studio after Apex Legends streamer Inhuman pointed out they used art from Cyberpunk 2077’s teaser trailer on their website, which led some fans to conclude they stole it.

Inhuman posted a screenshot comparing the art used on Midnight Society’s website and the scene in the trailer: “The first frame on the website for Dr Disrespect’s new NFT game is from the Cyberpunk 2077 teaser trailer.”

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However, it only appears for a brief moment, which led him to conclude: “It’s probably just a placeholder mistake, or they’re actually working with CDPR as a cyberpunk collab, which would be pretty cool.”

After Dexerto reached out for comment, a spokesperson for Midnight Society said: “That appears to be a placeholder image from early web design days. It was chosen to convey mood. It was supposed to have been swapped out with one of our own.”

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“We are fixing that, and at this time, Midnight Society does not have plans to collaborate with CD Projekt Red.”

This was echoed by Studio Head Robert Bowling, who said a web engineer “pushed an optimization that was meant to change to fallback image for the video on the website and accidentally uploaded the incorrect image.”

The image from the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer will be removed from Midnight Society’s site soon.